


ghost in the machine?

by sunsetseas77



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Betrayal, Ficlet, Gen, VR Jack Spheer, Virtual Reality, fight for Lena's soul-ish, human connection, or ?, pre season 5 angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 17:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetseas77/pseuds/sunsetseas77
Summary: Is Lena in a simulation with an unexpected twist?





	ghost in the machine?

**Author's Note:**

> This came up while reading current Jack and Lena angst and speculation. Minimal editing - just putting it out there.

The Jack of this iteration sighs as he looks around Lena’s VR office, a hand running through his hair. He catches her gaze, and she can see their virtual conversation has been as frustrating for him as it’s been for her. He’s taken on the demeanor she’d often seen with him when he believed it was time to move past the niceties and cut to the heart of the matter. Which he proceeds to do.

“What are you doing here, Lena?” Jack’s hand raises to gesture at her as he unsurprisingly prepares to present an opposing position to her current worldview. “You have a life to live. You need to let the weight of your past go. All of those moments you call failures that you torture yourself with. You’re human. You need people. Maybe different people than you had, but that’s still to be determined. Burying yourself in technology, though, that's not the answer.”

He steps toward her, a pleading smile on his lips.

“Please, let your guilt over me go. Instead, remember us, what we were. Value it.” His face brightens with a burgeoning idea that causes him to pause. Lena wonders what’s coming, and considers that her not having a prediction for her own simulation should be troubling. “Remember, pardon my cheesiness, that we’ll always have Paris.”

“We never went to Paris together.” She eyes him, suspicious but curious about where this is going.

His gasp and the accompanying grasp at the buttons of his shirt are pure theatrics.

“Well then, it’s time to fix that.”

He smiles in his devilish way, a hauntingly familiar expression, and snaps his fingers. And somehow VR Jack has control of the simulation. 

They’re standing on a pleasant evening in front of the Shangri-La Hotel with a taxi line waiting for guests heading out. Lena should be panicked, but she isn’t. She is so tired, and Jack is smiling down at her and he feels so real. Whatever is playing out must be emergent in the system, unexpected, but she finds she doesn’t want to care. 

“Where first?” Jack asks, boisterous as he holds Lena’s hand and draws her to a waiting cab.

—

Jack had insisted they end at Moulin Rouge. The night sky lightens in the east as they walk out with Jack’s arm around Lena’s shoulder and hers around his waist, the laughter from both spilling into the air between them. They quiet as they proceed half a block, then Jack is swinging around to the front of her, pulling her in for a mutual hug before stepping back. He leaves a hand on each shoulder and looks into her eyes. His eyes are sad but determined. She places hands on his biceps to hold onto him as well.

“You’re going.”

“For now, because you need me to.” He rests his forehead on Lena’s. Both close their eyes at the contact. 

“I’m still here,” he moves a hand to tap under the left side of her collarbone, “and not as some tech. You’re not alone. Don’t turn your back on who you are, Lena. Live. Create. Explore. _Love_.”

Lena dips her head once to acknowledge, unable yet to agree to any of it, but feeling the semblance of a connection back to a former life, a version of her that has moved far away.

With a light kiss on her cheek, Jack steps away. “I love you,” the sound of his voice reaches her at the same time as his fingers snap and Lena’s head is resting on the back of her chair in her office. Her real office.

**Author's Note:**

> Is Lena in a simulation at all?


End file.
